Ghost System
by SuperSkye
Summary: In the year 2700, Alicia and her crew are sent in search of a rebel planet. Alicia will soon find more than she bargained for and it's not the rebels... Chpt4: Alicia is held captive and a survivor from the crash seeks out help and finds some!
1. Introduction

_I sat there wondering for a long time._

_I wondered what exactly we would find._

_What are we up against?_

The human race had acquired the knowledge to harness speedy travelling in space. We could bend space and create a portal that would take us to exact co-ordinates or the more risky random jumps. A trip that would take hundreds of years through normal space could be turned into a trip of only several hours. Our human's race had advanced technologically over the past few hundred years. Now being 2700, we inhabit four different planets: our beloved Earth, resource enriched planet of Patraz, the earth duplicate Kinos and the dark planet of Sen.

The big kahunas of our society want more discoveries and so that brings you to me. I'm Alicia Armstrong, call me Alli. I'm a twenty six year old captain of a thirty year old space ship. Why my crew, my ship and I were chosen for an expedition to find and locate some rebel planet in the Tsua system is beyond me. Maybe because we're expendable in their eyes I don't know, but they fitted us with missiles, a fast new engine, good old laser shooters, and the device they call Dante-Scythe, that's the thing that creates our super siffy portals. I was informed many rebels are out there so I was to be careful and report any rebel activities.

I really hope all that equipment can save our arse when trouble farts on my ship.


	2. Warp Gate

"St. Claire, how's it lookin'?" I sat myself in the tin can of a throne in the middle of the control centre. Yay.

"It's quiet out there. Got ourselves a little space fluff but that's about it."

Space fluff is virtually harmless, but gross. It is basically a huge, thick cloud of dust, debris and bodies belonging to an unfortunate accident or something. I just assume people ignore the no smoking in engine room rule and get themselves blown up.

"Good, good. Prepare the jump co-ordinates… John I see that Joe Louis, get that food off the bridge!" I snorted.

A slim male swivelled in his chair to look back at me, "Yes ma'am!"

I looked over my bridge crew at their panels. St. Claire, bit of a heavy girl, short blonde hair in tight curls and her attitude can make some people think "BITCH", you get to know her and you'll find she's a sweet heart. Jack, sly bastard has issues, but he is amusing and I love his piloting skills. Especially with this whale of a ship. Then there is John, he has a huge crush on St. Claire, I can tell by the way he looks at her. How cute. Well I know I don't fancy his thin, wiry frame and dirty blonde tousled hair, and I don't think St. Claire does either. Unless she's playing hard to get with him.  
Then there is good old me, black, wavy hair, blue eyes and freckles. I'm not actually naturally a black haired gal, I have light brown hair but I find it's boring and went black for something new. Unfortunatly it has started fading.  
I can see those damnbrown roots.

"Co-ordinates ready..." John typed on his console, "…proceed with warp?"

"Go ahead." I strapped myself in.

"Proceeding with warp sequences. Dante-Scythe powering up, 15 percent."

This would be the first time I had taken a warp through space and to be quite honest I was scared shitless.

"Dante-Scythe: 40 percent."

I could see soft white whisps of particles coming up over the bridge window.

"Activate starboard and port bow cameras, I want to see what's going on."

I watched as two views came up on the giant vid. screen placed above the bridge window, at first all we could see was white, the cameras adjusted.

"Dante-Scythe: 70 percent."

Two prongs had jut out from the angular casing I had spied before, and between the prongs a great amount of energy was building up. The inside of the prongs were glowing a little orange though I knew it was built to handle the heat. Well I figured it was supposed to.

"Captain! Rebel contact picked up on radar! It's tailing us!" St.Claire yelled out.

"Dante-Scythe: 90 percent."

"Claire, how far?" I glanced at the progress of the Dante-Scythe.

"At their rate we might just get through this portal without confrontation."

"Why didn't we pick this up sooner?" I growled.

"It appears they were using the space fluff to mask themselves, ma'am."

I tensed; I have never fought in space. Ever. I only hoped that if there was a fight, I could make up some plan fast enough to destroy them and save us.

"Dante-Scythe, ready to warp!"

"Complete warping procedure now!"

There was a blinding flash of light and the ship lurched back.

"Throw on the brakes!" I yelled out with eyes shut tight.

While we couldn't see it, I remember when the scientists were explaining that a beam is shot out several thousand miles where the portal will open and the ship can proceed to move through.

Sure enough when I opened my eyes a black mouth yawned in front of us, only way we could actually see it was from theglowing orange lightfringing the outer rim.

"Move, move, move!"

The rebel ship was extremely close; on the camera I could see their missile pods opening up. Jack typed in commands and the ship lurched forward as the burners launched us towards the portal.

"Rebel ship matching speed. Catching up."

I gripped my arm rests tightly then got a plan.

"John fire two homing missiles out our ass, maybe it'll slow them down."

"Right away!" John worked his magic and two missiles shot out the stern. The ship scooted on through the portal and I was glad to see it immediately started to close, however I would not take my eyes off the video screen until I saw the portal disappear entirely.

"No!" I slammed my consol, the rebel ship slipped through! Wait… I watched the two missiles impact on the little bastards bowand I then watched in shock as the impact pushed the ship back towards the closing portal.

I couldn't help but laugh when the rebel ship got stuck amidships. Meaning half the ship was in the portal, the other half was sticking out the other side.

"Nothing to worry about now, we can just chillax and enjoy the ride."

"Twenty objects in bound."

I snorted.

"The rebel's ma'am, theyfired their missiles at us."

Looking back to the aft cams I saw the rebel ship get torn into two asthe portal closed entirely, but twenty specks were following us in this abyss.

"Requesting evasive manuevers?" Jack called out.

"Request denied. We'll shoot them out with lasers."

Jack swivelled about in his chair, "You realise the probability of hitting those missiles is slim to nothing."

"Seems to me someone is not following orders." St. Claire looked over her shoulder.

I looked through my thick, black framed glasses, down the bridge of my nose at Jack and said nothing. I smiled to myself as he twirled around and John readied the lasers after the tiny spat was settled.

Then I thought of something.

"Fire off two of our larger missiles, when they get close to the twenty, blow up our missiles."

Jack seemed more pleased with this tactic and I was glad to see as we blew up our two missiles the other twenty exploded from the shock blast.

Oh goody, I thought of something that worked.  
I wondered; how badly damaged would we have gotten had those twenty missiles hit? They weren't big… I probably would have lost crew down in the bulkheads.

"ETA?"

"Two hours." St. Claire chimed.

"Relax a bit, take a nap, whatever." I unbuckled myself from my seat, stood and stretched,"John! What did I say about that Joe Louis?"

"Right! Getting it off the bridge now!" He began shoving the chocolate cake thing in his mouth and I shook my head.


	3. What Kind of Luck

I woke up with a snort and sat up.

"Right, report!" I noticed John and St.Claire were the only ones here.

"Ah you're awake," St.Claire grinned up at me, "well perfect timing because we'll be out the warp in two minutes."

Far, far in the distance I could see a small orange dot in a black void.

"Good, good, no troubles I take it."

"None at all." Jack walked back onto the bridge and took his seat.

"Perfect." I stood and stretched again, "well be prepared for anything, we're gonna be in rebel territory. The moment we hit that warp gate I want the engines cut to 10 percent and all external lights off."

"Twenty seconds till merge with normal space."

I strapped myself back in and held on to the straps.

"Ten seconds."

I suddenly noticed a rat scuttled on deck, "How did a rodent get on here!"

Everyone turned around.

Suddenly the ship shuddered and came to a sudden stop. Everyone's body shoved into the harnesses but the unfortunate rat flew across the bridge and smashed into the window.

It stuck there.

"Holy shit. Hope that's not a bad omen." John gawked at the body and St.Claire began hyperventilating."

"Jack?"

"No problem." He grabbed the body and wiped the glass.

While that was happening I was eyeing the situation. It was quiet and it seemed as though we were the only ones out here.

"Start up the engines, keep the lights cut; Time to go exploring."

There were many planets in this system, but one particularly large one caught my attention.

"So if you were a rebel, would you pick the largest planet or the smallest?" I asked no one in general.

"Rebels have been around for years. Never know but they may have a whole entire civilization and hey, why not go for the big planet? They're only gonna get bigger."

I nodded, Jack had a point.

"Lets get in close and record everything. I'm guessing the scientists want us to land."

"If it's a rebel planet, I don't think we should land." St. Claire looked over at me with a worried look, "I don't exactly feel like dying, being raped, or over-all being captured and stuffed in a cell."

"Wouldn't blame you…" I sighed, "We will see what we can collect from up here, I doubt we'll be able to transmit back to Patraz from here."

Everyone looked grim; I couldn't even hold back my 'I think we're going to die' face.

"Oh whey!" St.Claire double checked her findings.

"What?" I was almost afraid to know what she had found.

"We've got five fighters inbound, their lasers are _hot_!"

"Lets go! Move, now!"

I was thrown into my seat from the sudden acceleration, yet I started to freak. One fighter was ok, but five?We will be scrap if we fight, new weapons or not.

"Get a random jump ready, I don't care where it is, as long as it's out of here! Jack send out the homing missiles."

"Aye."

I tapped my arm rest and suddenly took the controls the biggest gun we had; the heavy plasma cannon.

I called her Baby.

Many ships these days don't have the huge cannons anymore. People claimed it was too heavy, consumed too much energy and the overall accuracy of them pretty much sucked.

I hadn't used Baby much but heck, might as well give it a shot.

"Dante-Scythe has now reached thirty percent."

I was so wrapped up in this I never heard the percent reports before thirty percent. Activating the screen I could see outside the ship, with the gun placed at the top, I can swivel 360 degrees.

"Jack, re-route the lasers energy to the plasma cannon, that way Dante and the engines don't lose any energy."

I began powering up the cannon and aimed. It was kind of awkward really. Here I am in a swivel chair on the bridge yet my eyes are on top the cannon (figurativly speaking 'course).

"Dante-Scythe: seventy five percent!"

I fired my first plasma shot, it missed my target but the energy was close enough to melt one side of it. Wires sparked and small fires exploded and just as quickly went out. No oxygen in space. That was enough to short out the fighter and leave it dead in space. Though there were still four bastards that lobbed a few hundred missiles at our ass.

"Dante-Scyth, ready to-"

"Get us out of here!"

The blinding white light faded to reveal the same portal as before, at this speed we sped into the opening and beyond into the abyss. Luck was on our side, the missiles didn't get through.

"So what co-ordinates?" I relaxed, shutting down Baby's controls.

"I don't know, I chose the random function and it automatically takes us somewhere."

"Damnit." I growled and began rubbing my temples, black strands of hair clinging to my sweaty forehead.

"Hey you said random."

"I know, I know."

"Guys… I think we're gonna find out sooner than we expected." St. Claire tightened her straps just in case.

I looked up to the window to see the portal opening just ahead.

It was strange, when we came out I saw a vastness of black. I recognized other chunks of irregular objects here and there, it was then I realised we were heading straight for a huge body of water.

"Engines! Get us up! Nose up! Helmets and strap yourselves in tight! I might have called this ship a whale but I don't think she can swim!"

We might have still been in the top atmosphere but we were coming in fast.

"Engines close to critical!"

"Keep pushing her!"

I shoved my helmet on, warning sirens blared behind the two steel doors located behind me.

"We're on the brink of an engine meltdown!"

"Flush back-up coolant through the system!"

"I did!" Jack yelled back.

I sent out a warning through the ships intercom, "All personnel proceed to emergency pods or lock-down! I repeat proceed to emergency pods or lock-down! "

I looked to St. Claire, "How long?"

"Fifty seconds till impact."

Her voice was shaking.

"Fuck it, ready or not, open hatches six through nine."

"On it." John began typing in his codes.

I looked over the pods; forty five percent of them were full. I had no idea how many made it to the lock-down cubes. Aw man, I would love to be in a lock-down cube right now, full of food, water and safety pods built right inside.

Those things could probably handle a flippin' nuclear bomb.

"Twenty seconds till impact!" St. Claire yelled.

A strong rumble went throughout the ship as hatches opened and caught the air.

"Decent slowed, engines still running hot."

"We gotta eject, NOW!"

There was no time to slow it down enough. I watched as St. Claire, Jack, and John pressed their emergency eject buttons. I did the same.

Above our heads the panelling slid away and we were shot out of the bridge. A thick plastic wrap covered our bodies and inflated into balloon like casings. My heart was racing and I felt light headed. Looking down I watched as my ship collided with the water, metal was torn off in huge chunks, and overall the ship broke in two and proceeded to sink.

Much like the others and I. Except we weren't exactly sinking into water, we were sinking in the air, hurtling towards the water. Our balloons were built for space, not the atmosphere of a planet.

That's what sucked about having a thirty year old spaceship. Everything was so damn primitive.

My balloon clunked with the water, twirled a bitand proceeded to drift towards land that's to the help of my ships wave. My poor ship. I could never use Baby again.

There was a scraping sound, my bubble has landed. I grabbed the deflation string.

Wait.

What if this planet had no oxygen? I looked at the trees. Fuck it.

Pulling the string the entire bubble balloon collapsed in from a huge hole. Oh cool, by pulling the string it ripped open the balloon, much like you pull that stray thread from your shirt and it starts to unravel your clothing.

I unstrapped myself, threw off my helmet, corrected my glasses and emerged from the deflated balloon like a new woman.

I looked around, no one was in sight. Damnit.

I began running down the sandy beach, looking for any signs. All I really cared about was St. Claire, John, and even Jack, I hoped they were ok.

Slowly I made my way off the beach and into the tree line. I was fearful alright, but I needed a higher point, if I find a tall tree or hill maybe I could see where the others went.

Out upon the vast oceans, two figures flew together to investigate somewhat of a strange sighting. In the darkness they were virtually invisible, the odd time when the moon came out behind the cloud cover, it revealed crimson red on one and deep blue on another

"So what exactly did you see?"

"An odd looking ship literally popped out of no where in the sky and hurtled towards the ocean."

"If this is a joke rookie, your head might be the right price for wasting my time."

"I promise, I know what I saw, Starscream sir. There, down there."

Down below a giant water footprint was left from the crash and still the bubbles rose, creating a white froth on the surface. Debris floated everywhere.

"You head down to the beach; I'll go back to base. Can't risk radioing in when Autobots could be around."

"Yes sir."

Starscream turned and headed back the way they came, and as the rookie transformed and landed on the beach, he startled a human hiding in the trees to a point where she fainted.

That rats deathreally was a bad omen.

------------------------------

Feel free to review now that it has gotten a little more interesting.


	4. Help

107 hits on this story, and I receive one single review from a valued reader? -- We writers like our reviews. Show me you actually care to see updates, leave a review please. Thank you.

* * *

The large robot surveyed the scene carefully when he landed. No sign of the Autobots; good. Starscream and the others wouldn't be along for another forty minutes at least. The rookie decided he best pick up the debris on shore and hide it in the thick tree line. At least then if the Autobots arrived there would be nothing for them to scrounge up. 

As he made his way along the beach he studied the metal chunks, insulation and various foreign objects that had washed up.

He picked up a white box with a red cross on it. Whatever crashed in the ocean must have been some alien species, not unidentified transformers he assumed they might have been.

With his hands full he noticed another shape in the sand.

The moon came out from behind clouds and washed the beach with its eerie glow. The light filtered through the object, making it take on a yellowish tinge.

Walking up he noticed small imprints in the sand leading away from it. Picking up the translucent object he looked over to the tree line where the prints led. The rookie began following them.

I don't know how long I was out for, but when I did awaken I heard ocean. I groaned, maybe it was all a dream. I lived beside an ocean back on Patraz, maybe I left the balcony door open and that salty breeze was just from home. I hadn't opened my eyes yet, but when I heard a sudden loud crunch I jolted up to my feet.

First thing I saw was the trees in moonlight, and then above me I saw a hulking form staring.

Suddenly a rush hit my brain, "ugh." I swayed and almost fell over. Damn, I hate when you stand up too fast.

"Strange…" the figure reached its large hand towards me. I jumped back.

I saw the hulking shadow flinch, did I surprise it? It went for another grab and I leapt back. That's it I'm not going to hang around here. So I turned tail and ran further into the tropical forest.

"Hey!" The figures voice had a hint of anger, but it sounded as though it was more annoyed than anything. Just ahead I saw a clearing and veered around it.

Don't think I ever ran for two minutes straight before but I started to huff. Shut up. I'm not used to running, I never run.

A rumble was growing behind me. Oh shit. It was coming. I remembered the jet and put two and two together. Rumble plus jet equals angry thing.

I stopped and stood still, trying to control my heavy breathing. The rumble grew louder and louder very fast and I was soon covering my ears.

Silence.

I looked up but couldn't see through the heavy foliage above me. I had a bad feeling about this. Trees were shorn as two big feet plummeted to the forest floor. Leaves, splinters and bugs rained upon me. Bugs. I saw a spider on my leg and a huge hand lunge towards me. I panicked.

Slammed into metal the little wind in my lungs was knocked out, and I heard the tree that was behind me crack and fall to the forest floor.

Pressure closed in around me and suddenly I found it very hard to breath.

Violet panels studied me and I croaked. I was being held in its giant hand, where giant fingers were currently squeezing me way to hard.

I hit the hand and tried to speak but the stupid thing didn't seem to get the fact it was killing me.

"You're an odd creature, but you look familiar."

'_Odd? Me? Oh I look familiar? Well I don't fucking know a dumb ass like you' _I thought to myself wickedly.

"You're a human that's what you are…"

I began feeling light headed.

"Thought you fleshies could talk."

That pissed me off right there. I really was dealing with a dumb ass.

"Can't breathe!" I whispered out. Don't know how it heard me but it immediately loosened its hold.

I gasped for air and screamed: "Thank you for not killing me!" it seemed my anger pushed away my fear for this creature.

"That's quite the disrespectful tone you're giving a Decepticon." The figure growled.

"You were killing me. Sorry for crashing on your planet but we didn't really have a choice."

"We?"

"I _had_ a crew. Don't even know if anyone is alive." I eyed the robots face. It had strong features but still looked a little young, maybe early twenties young. Though with such a quizzical face I couldn't help but think this robot reminded me of a human.

It was when my mind began working on that name; Decepticon. I've heard it before.

"So you're a human."

"And you're a Decepticon. So now what? We stand here all night and chat it up, you going to probe me, inject me with alien stuff or something so I can give birth to little robotic babies."

"Humans are strange. You might have suffered some blown circuits in that head of yours."

"OK, yeah. So again: now what?"

"We wait."

"For what?" did I really want to know the answer?

"For Megatron."

St. Claire watched the entire thing. She had landed far down the beach out of sight, and when she went looking for anyone else she saw a giant robot calling out from the tree line. At that point she had dove for cover but there was no way she was gonna peel her eyes from this sight.

She had saw the discarded transport bubble and figured It was after John, Alicia or Jack. The robot jumped and seemed to fall apart, only to reassemble and take on the form of a jet.

Normally St. Claire would have concluded she probably sustained brain damage, was dreaming or something far from the truth. She knew this time she couldn't have been just seeing things and one of her friends was in possible danger. She headed deeper into the forest, avoiding webs, holes, and roots.

For awhile she followed the sound of the jet. When it stopped making sound, she stopped to listen. There was a loud crunch, an army of birds squawked into flight and all was silent once more. From there she couldn't hear the robot talking so she decided to just guess and go.

Twenty minutes passed and she started to wonder if she had gone the wrong way.

Wait, what was that? She paused and listened.

There was an almost… growling, rumbling sound. It wasn't the same as that jet but… cars? Cars! Oh people are here!

St. Claire ran as fast as she could, exploding out the brush into a flat open field.

There in the middle of the field were three black cars driving like mad, tearing up the grass and leaving dirt ruts in the ground.

She waited a moment to catch her breath and waited. They hadn't even spotted her, guess they were having too much fun destroying the ground.

She cleared her throat and waved her arms, "Hey!" she walked closer but kept her distance; she didn't exactly want to get hit. While she tried to get their attention she noted to herself the body of the cars were antique compared to the modern cars back on Patraz.

"Hey!" she screamed out over their hootin' and hollering.

"Oh whey! What's this?" The cars drove up to St. Claire, beaming their headlights in her face.

"Please help me I think one of my friends is being attacked by a transforming jet-robot thing." She covered her eyes, trying to see the drivers.

"Wait, what?"

"I know this sounds crazy but it's true, you have to believe me."

St. Claire was too panicked to really notice she was talking to cars, not humans sticking their heads out the rolled down window, or humans stepping out the car.

"Oh we believe you. Where is this robot?"

"I… I don't know, I tried to follow to check it out but I lost it."

"How many more of you are there?"

"Our ship crashed in the ocean, I have no idea how many of us survived. There are probably a lot still out there on the waters."

"Stay here, whatever you do: do not go anywhere. We'll be back."

"Okay." St. Claire was left alone in the night as the three cars sped off.

"Charger to Optimus Prime. This is an emergency."

The three black vehicles sped down the sandbanks that ran alongside the river.

"This is Optimus Prime, what seems to be the trouble?"

"Humans have somehow found us; one of them said a transforming jet-robot was going after her friend."

"There is one with you?"

"We told her to stay until we get back."

"Is she away from danger?"

"Yes, yes, but we need to find that jet. We'll be at the eastern beachside in three minutes."

"Meet you there."

"If it's Starscream I'm gonna kill him for denting me up bad last time." The vehicle at the very back of the pack spoke up.

"Unless I get him first." The second vehicle laughed.

"Right, well first 'bot to trash up Starscream wins an energon round at the bar."

"Who pays for it?" second vehicle nudged Charger on the back bumper.

"The losers."

"Deal." The other two nameless vehicles said in unison.

We were sitting there in a silent awkwardness, I hate that. We had moved back to the tree line by the beach and we had remained here for a good half hour. Here I was being held by a giant Decepticon hand, while he was just sitting on the ground. Often times he would just stare at me, when I looked at him he would look away.

I began studying the Decepticons features as best I could in the night. I had thought the 'bot was black but moonlight revealed his colour was a deep blue. A long, crimson glass tube sat on his chest where plum purple framed it. I noticed some other purple highlights here and there but that was all I could make out so far.

I looked up to his face and caught him staring at me again.

"The names Alicia Armstrong. Don't know if I should be pleased to meet you or not."

His lip seemed to curl in disinterest, or just plain 'I don't care attitude' and he looked away.

"You don't seem to be that bad of a guy…robot."

He didn't say anything.

"So who's Megatron?"

The 'bots face whipped towards me and suddenly I was only several feet from the giants face.

"You fool! You don't know who he is?"

I shook my head, suddenly wondering if I should have said anything.

"He is the great leader of the Decepticons. His ruthless, determination and will to rule has brought him close to the destruction of the petty Autobots once and for all. After he's done with them he'll move on to ruling the entire universe and he'll probably destroy your home planet too. No use for you fleshies."

"Oh… charming." I felt a pang of fear. I don't want to meet Megatron, I want to get away from this Decepticon.

Wait.

Three black cars skid across the sandy beach, sliding as they tried to stop. My Decepticon captor stood and pulled out a really big gun. We started to disappear into the tree line. I figured this purple blue 'bot didn't want to be seen by these cars, as though he was scared or something.

So this is what I did:

I screamed.

* * *

C'mon now, you can't resist a review now. If you have some ideas as to what can happen next chapter or in this fic, let me know. If I like it, i'll incorporate it into my plan.  
Thanks for reading, and cookies if you review! 

By the way I never went through this chapter for mistakes or anything in typing/spelling, i'm just way too tired. Don't mind me.


End file.
